Cardinals reliever Scott Blewett has exercised an opt-out clause in his minor league contract, reports Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis either needs to add him to the MLB roster or grant him his release.
Blewett has spent the entire season at Triple-A Memphis. Although his 5.18 earned run average across 48 2/3 innings isn’t encouraging, the 30-year-old righty has punched out 28% of opponents against an 8% walk rate. The ugly ERA is inflated by a .425 average on balls in play. That’s likely to come down, particularly if he’s pitching in front of an MLB-caliber defense.
That said, Blewett isn’t likely to maintain that kind of swing-and-miss stuff against big league hitters. He has a modest 19.3% strikeout rate over 43 MLB appearances spanning four seasons. Blewett struck out just 18% of opponents across 44 1/3 frames last year, dividing the campaign between Minnesota, Baltimore and Atlanta. He was limited to minor league opportunities over the winter after being waived by the Orioles in the final week of the regular season.
The Cardinals rank 17th in the majors with a 4.22 bullpen ERA. They’re in the bottom five in strikeout rate (20%) and have allowed 4.40 earned runs per nine over the past month. St. Louis has kept their entire staff remarkably healthy for a second straight year, as rookie righty Max Rajcic is their only pitcher currently on the major league injured list.
They have four bullpen spots committed to Riley O’Brien, Ryne Stanek, George Soriano and JoJo Romero. Lefty Justin Bruihl is out of options and has done well enough in middle relief. St. Louis could swap Blewett in for any of Matt Svanson, Luis Gastelum or Gordon Graceffo if they want to keep him in the organization.
They would also need to create space on the 40-man roster. That’d require them to designate someone for assignment or place one of Richard Fitts or Tekoah Roby on the MLB injured list (entitling them to a big league salary for the reminder of the season).
